


i will be a better me

by Aramley



Category: Social Network (2010) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robot, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-24
Updated: 2011-09-24
Packaged: 2017-10-24 00:03:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aramley/pseuds/Aramley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"So, I accidentally rented an android," Jesse said.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	i will be a better me

Andrew came with the house. That was the only reason Jesse kept him around.

Really.

-

Jesse had never owned a droid before. His mother had bought him a Roomba once but it scared the cats, so he just kept it in a box at the back of his wardrobe and used the vacuum cleaner like the Luddite people often informed him he was. Didn't Jesse know that everyone had droids these days?

"And by everyone," Jesse said, "you mean lazy people with more disposable income than they know how to adequately, uh, dispose of?"

"I would think you, Jesse Eisenberg, would be all over that shit," said Emma. "Anything to minimise your interaction with humans."

Jesse wasn't sure how purchasing a fake human as a live-in servant was supposed to help with that, and the entire android thing struck him as both creepy and kind of morally dubious.

So Andrew happened by accident. He really did come with the house, this rental property in the Hollywood hills that Jesse was on the brink of signing for when Andrew came wandering in from the next room, grinning widely when he saw Jesse, saying in this completely unexpected English accent, "Oh, hello!"

"Uh, hi," Jesse said, glancing at the realtor.

"This is the android service," she explained. "It's included in the rent, of course."

"Oh," said Jesse. "You know, I, uh, I'm not sure if I really want -"

"It comes with the house," she said, in that bright unbending way that crumbled Jesse's objections.

"Oh," said Jesse.

-

"So I accidentally rented an android," Jesse said, later.

"If it's the kind that charges by the hour, I don't want to know, and _ew_ ," Emma said. He could almost hear her wrinkling her nose down the line.

"What? I - oh, no, I didn't mean - that's not even legal."

"It's legal in California, actually."

"Of course it is," said Jesse, rolling his eyes, because of course it was. "But that I meant was that I accidentally rented a house with an android service."

"Well, _duh_ , Jess," said Emma, half-laughing. "All decent rentals come with android service these days. Most hotels do android service."

Jesse sighed. "This is a highly unsatisfactory future."

"You're telling me," said Emma. "I'm still waiting for my freaking hoverboard, man."

-

Jesse wasn't giving up his New York apartment while he rented in L.A., so the amount of stuff he had to move into the house was pretty light - a few suitcases, a couple of boxes of the books and vinyls he couldn't be without. The android met him at the front door, saying, "Here, let me take these," bright and helpful, prising Jesse's fingers off the handles.

"You want these in the master bedroom, right?" he said, hefting two suitcases and setting off through the house.

"Uh," said Jesse, following, just about managing not to wring his hands.

"It gets the most amazing amount of sunlight, you'll love it," said the android, throwing a grin over his shoulder. "Why don't you put your box of books in the study?"

"The study," said Jesse.

"It's the room off the main living area," said the android, disappearing around the curve of the stairs. "The one with all the shelves!"

"I'm going to need so many more therapists," Jesse said, to himself and the house, and the world.

-

"So I, uh, feel like I should know your name," Jesse said, hovering in the doorway of the study while the android unboxed Jesse's books and arranged them in neat piles on the floor. It was late evening, and he had spent most of the day hiding in the upstairs bathroom while the android unpacked and arranged most of Jesse's things

"You can call me whatever you like," said the android. "Do you have a preferred system for arranging these? Author alphabetical? Date of publication?"

"Library of Congress," said Jesse.

"I feel like I ought to have known that," the android said, grinning at Jesse. He began to subdivide the book piles.

"Seriously, though," said Jesse, watching the quick efficient movements of the android's hands. "Don't you, you know, come with names?"

"The last tenant here called me Andrew," said the android, looking up. "But you really can call me whatever you like."

"Andrew's - nice," said Jesse. "Andrew the android, I mean, that's kind of - that works. I'm Jesse."

"I know," said Andrew. "I downloaded your wikipedia entry."

"Oh," said Jesse. "Well. That's not at all creepy."

"Is it creepy?" Andrew's smile faltered. "Sorry. Sometimes I'm not very good at telling things that hu- that people might find, um, creepy. You should tell me if I do things like that."

"I will definitely do that," said Jesse, nodding. "But right now I'm gonna go do a, uh thing. Go to the bathroom. For a while."

-

When Jesse had thought about other people's androids, he'd imagined either the stone-faced butler types, or the dubious too-beautiful models with improbably large breasts or chiselled jaws.

Andrew had a goofy lopsided smile and big brown eyes and hair that didn't look even a little bit like it had come from a factory mould. The uniform of the letting agency exhibited a vulnerable pallor of neck and wrist, hinted vaguely at a body that was skinny and wiry rather than muscle-magazine perfect. Andrew broke into this broad grin when Jesse came home in the afternoons like there was nothing, literally nothing that made him happier than Jesse being around, than being around Jesse.

-

"He's freaking me out," Jesse complained. He swirled his Starbucks dregs and thought about getting another one. It felt like a two-latte day; that was how bad things were.

"You're overthinking this," said Emma. She kicked him lightly under the table. "Stop anthropomorphising him."

"I'm not anthropomorphising him! He anthropomorphises himself! He is anthropomor _phic_ ," said Jesse. "He has more personality than actual human people I know. I'm pretty sure he has more personality than me."

"Jesse," Emma admonished, sighing like she always did to convey how little time she had for Jesse's self-deprecating bullshit. "Just think of him like, I don't know, like one of your cats. You're always telling me about how cats have all this personality, blah blah."

"My cats don't sing while they make breakfast," said Jesse. "In fact, usually I am the one making breakfast. The whole balance of power in the human-cat relationship feels significantly different. I've never had an android before but I'm reasonably certain I'm supposed to be the one in charge."

"So take charge, Eisenberg," said Emma, ruthlessly. She stuck out her tongue at him over the rim of her coffee-mug and Jesse wondered why he even bothered to keep asking for her advice.

-

Andrew made dinner. Andrew made, in fact, a significant amount of dinner.

"Listen," Jesse said, looking at the plates on the kitchen countertop. "I, you know, appreciate this and all. I'm just saying that maybe if you didn't want to make three-course dinners every night, that would, that would be okay."

Andrew looked crestfallen. "Don't you like it?"

"No no, it's." Jesse waved his hands around, became conscious that he was doing so and that it was ridiculous, and made himself put them palm down on the counter, fingertips flat to the cool marble. This was too hard. "I mean, don't you have other things to do?"

Andrew shrugged, narrow-shouldered. "This is what I do."

"Yeah, but, I mean, there have to be other things that you do," Jesse said. "Despite what my mother and probably most people who've ever met me would tell you, I don't need a full-time babysitter, and I am completely capable of taking near-adequate care of myself."

Andrew looked like he didn't understand. "Is this a conversation about me being - creepy?"

"No, no," said Jesse, and then, "Well, kind of."

"Oh," said Andrew. "You know, I really don't want to make you uncomfortable. If you'd rather I can arrange to just be around when you're not here to clean up? You won't even have to know I'm here."

And really, that was sort of perfect for Jesse, but then there was something about the set of Andrew's mouth and the slope of his shoulders and the way he was holding his arms across his body, thin wrists crossed, like Jesse was hurting feelings that he shouldn't even have. It made Jesse feel like he'd kicked a puppy.

"No," he found himself saying. "No, no. Look, I'm just saying this all wrong. Sometimes I think I'm less human than an android."

"Jesse," said Andrew, tilting his head curiously in a way that made him look like some sort of deer.

Jesse cut him off with an embarrassed waving gesture. "And now I'm being culturally insensitive or whatever so, God, I'm just going to say that I think I'd rather it if this were less like you being my maid and my nanny and more like - like we both just happen to live here. We can cook on a rota or whatever."

"I don't eat," said Andrew.

"You can wash the dishes on the nights I cook," said Jesse. "Or you can put out the flames when I set the kitchen on fire with your super android powers, just. You know."

"Super android powers," said Andrew, smiling. He uncrossed his arms and leaned them on the counter behind, his body a long lean stretch, body language opened up so that Jesse relaxed, fractionally, in turn.

"You can't shoot lasers out of your eyes?" He pulled the plate of chicken noodle salad that Andrew had made as a starter towards him. "Leap tall buildings in a single bound?"

"They must have have missed out my superpowers chip at the factory," said Andrew.

"Damn," Jesse said. "That sucks for you."

And that was better.

-

Jesse, because he was apparently more of an organisation freak than the android, drew up a rota.

"I'll cook on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays," he said, writing _J_ in the spaces for those days, and an _A_ under Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday."

Andrew leaned over Jesse's shoulder to see. "What about Saturday?"

"Saturday we could get takeout," said Jesse. "Or, I mean, I'll get takeout. How do you want to split the grocery shopping?"

"If you make a list of the things you want, I have a direct link to the online store," said Andrew, tapping the side of his head. "I am hooked in to the Matrix," he said, waggling his ridiculously expressive eyebrows the same way he did every time he made the stupid joke.

"I don't mind going to the grocery store every once in a while," said Jesse. "Maybe we could do it together - I could drive us there?"

"Ah." Andrew grimaced. "No, I can't."

The tone of his voice made Jesse glance at him. "You can't?"

"I can't leave the property," Andrew said, and when Jesse kept looking at him he pushed up the sleeve of his right arm to bare his inner wrist, perfect facsimile down to the tracery of veins and tendons beneath the skin. When he pulled the skin taut a darker, squarer shape showed up briefly amongst the blue lines and Andrew said, "It's a sensor. I, uh, shut down if I go outside the perimeter."

"Oh," said Jesse, aware that he was staring, and that it was probably rude. Andrew dug his thumb into the place where the sensor shadowed the skin before he tugged the sleeve of his shirt down over it.

Into the awkward silence, Jesse said, "If you can't leave the house, what do you, you know, _do_ all day?"

Andrew shrugged. "I clean? I cook? It's getting spring-time now, so there's the, uh, the garden."

"That's it?"

"That's my job," Andrew said. "It's what I'm for."

Jesse didn't point out that those weren't the same things at all.

"Well, you could, I mean, if you wanted to you should feel free to read my books," said Jesse. "I don't know how much you enjoy, um, Russian history or Tennessee Williams, which is basically four fifths of everything that's in there, but you should feel free. If you want."

Andrew's mouth quirked in a small smile. "Really?"

Jesse wondered what mad scientist it had been who decided that androids should be able to produce expressions of shy gratitude like that, and for what possible reason, other than to take over the world one socially awkward person at a time.

-

In the beginning Jesse slept badly, aware and thinking about Andrew somewhere else in the house, doing whatever it was that he did when Jesse wasn't around. What _did_ androids do at night? Did they sleep? Did they dream of electric sheep?

Okay, so, _Blade Runner_ was probably a bad mental direction to take.

Jesse would slip into fitful dreams about people standing at the foot of his bed, watching him sleep, which you didn't need a dream dictionary to decode.

"This is ridiculous," he told the ceiling and himself, and shoved back the covers.

The house was quiet - not horror movie quiet exactly, and Jesse headed that thought off at the pass because madness, actual madness lay beyond it. It was the kind of quiet Jesse associated with late nights in his apartment in New York, when the cats were curled in their baskets, a kind of watchful domestic quiet. The house felt occupied, and Jesse thought that was kind of weird, because technically Andrew was no more an occupant of the house than the toaster or the oven or his laptop, and -

"Jesse?" said Andrew, from somewhere very close by.

"Jesus," Jesse said, his heart spiking in his chest. When he wheeled around, Andrew was right behind him. "Jesus, don't - Andrew."

"Oh," said Andrew. He made a face. "I'm sorry, did I startle you?"

"I think we can add sneaking up on people in the middle of the night to the list of things that might be creepy," Jesse said. He put his hand over his chest, digging the heel in hard like he could force his heart to slow, and swallowed around an ugly surge of adrenaline. This was why he never watched horror movies.

Andrew reached out and pulled Jesse's free wrist towards him, pressing his fingertips against the soft inner wrist.

"It's beating so fast," Andrew said. "But it's slowing down. You aren't going to have a heart attack."

"That's good to know," said Jesse. He was looking at Andrew's fingers around his wrist, his skin a shade paler than Jesse's but just as warm. He'd expected something - a shiver of distaste, or revulsion, but there was nothing, save the jolt it always gave him when anyone touched him.

"Did you want anything? Jesse?"

It took Jesse a moment or two to register that Andrew was talking to him. He looked up. Andrew was grey-toned in the dim light, and Jesse experienced a moment of cognitive dissonance - Andrew who was warm, who was lit up under his skin with a bright imitation of life.

"I was just, um," Jesse said. "I was going to make some coffee. I couldn't sleep."

"Coffee's not much good for insomnia," said Andrew. He was still holding Jesse's wrist. "Why don't I make you some warm milk instead?"

"Didn't we talk about you not being my babysitter?" Jesse said, before he could stop himself.

Andrew just laughed. "I'm whatever you need," he said. He tugged lightly on Jesse's wrist, drawing him towards the kitchen. "Come on. Let's sort you out."

-

Jesse had lived alone ever since he could afford to move out of his parents' house because just the idea of sharing a domestic space with another person made Jesse want to schedule double sessions with both of his therapists indefinitely, but being roommates with Andrew was surprisingly bearable. Jesse could have understood it if Andrew was an unobtrusive housemate, keeping to his own quiet corners and routines, but he wasn't. Emma had told Jesse to think of him as a cat, but Jesse thought that Andrew was actually more like an oversized and overexcited puppy, trailing at Jesse's heels practically everywhere he went. He was interested in everything

("Play one of your musicals for me," Andrew pleaded. "Jesse. _Jesse_. Play a musical."

" _Andrew_ ," Jesse breathed, exasperated. He waved a hand at Andrew's head. "Can't you just, you know, download them into your brain or something?"

"But that doesn't count," Andrew said. He was perilously close to _pouting_ , which was absurd.

"Why doesn't it count?"

"Because I want to know why you like them," said Andrew, kicking at Jesse's ankle)

and seemed to think that everything that Jesse did was unspeakably adorable

("You have reading glasses," said Andrew, delighted, the first time Jesse got them out. "Oh gosh, look, little reading glasses!"

"Uh," said Jesse. "I, yeah, what?")

and hung out in the kitchen for hours when Jesse was eating his meals on the nights Andrew cooked or while Jesse cooked on the other nights, even though Andrew lived on air and electricity or whatever, and kept up a running commentary of everything that ran through his brain, and it didn't even bother Jesse, because clearly he was insane, he thought, while he stirred pasta sauce and contemplated this entire predicament. Clearly, living with an android had made Jesse more insane than he had been to begin with, and now he was never going to be able to interact with humans again.

"You should add more oil to that," Andrew said, because he was a terrible back-seat cook. "I'm just saying, for your sake, because I care."

"So you should definitely feel free to tell my mother that the recipe our family has passed down for generations is wrong," said Jesse. "And I hope for your sake you come with a warranty."

"Just a smidgeon more oil."

"'Smidgeon' isn't even a word," said Jesse. "Stop pretending to be British."

"I'm not pretending. My heart is stamped with _Made In England_."

"That explains why your cooking sucks," said Jesse.

"Really," Andrew said, brandishing the oil, "really, Jesse, just a - shit."

"What?" Jesse took the pan off the stove-top because it really was finished, whatever Andrew said. "What's the matter?"

"Oh, shit," Andrew said, holding out the oil with one hand while he swiped at the fresh grease stain on his shirt with the other. "Shit, shit. I'm so clumsy."

"I didn't know androids could be clumsy," said Jesse. He handed over a clutch of paper towels, and Andrew swiped ineffectually at the stain, but the shirt was really ruined. "I think this is your penance for all the unwanted cooking advice."

"I'm a terrible android," said Andrew, half-laughing now at least. "I am a disgrace to my circuits. I don't even have a thing clean to wear, my other shirt is in the laundry."

"You only have two shirts?" Jesse said, and, because that felt rude, amended it with, "I mean, uh, you should just borrow something of mine."

"Oh, no," said Andrew, and _I couldn't possibly_ , and _really, I don't want to put you out_ , and they really couldn't have made him more British, Jesse thought.

"Please," he said. "You're taller than me but I guess we must be around about the same size, right, don't worry about it. We'll get you something."

Andrew kept apologising all the way to Jesse's room and apologised some more while Jesse sifted through his clothes, the selection thinned by his own need to do some laundry once in a while.

"Here," he said, handing Andrew a soft, faded button-down. "That should fit."

Andrew took the shirt tentatively, as if Jesse might change his mind. "I really can manage."

"Will you just," Jesse said, waving at Andrew in a way that was meant to convey an order for Andrew to just take his damn shirt off, already. Andrew cast one last pathetic glance at Jesse before he laid the shirt on the bed and began to shrug out of his own, exposing the pale, lean body under the loose fabric. There were muscles working under the flat stomach as he pulled his shirt up, and Jesse saw the ridges of ribs, flat dusky nippes, a little chest hair. When the shirt was off he dumped it on the floor and turned to the bed to put on the clean one, showing Jesse the lines of his shoulders and spine that Jesse traced down into that intimate little dip at the base, wondering if it would be warm if Jesse put his fingertips on it, if it would make Andrew shiver like it made Jesse shiver when a lover's fingers brushed there, and, oh. _Oh_.

"It fits," Andrew said, turning with his arms open to show off the way that the shirt sat on him, a tiny bit loose because it was old and soft and there was a button missing from the neck that meant it lay open across the shallow concave of a collarbone, and now Jesse was staring, he really was, and this was so bad.

"You're too nice, Jesse," said Andrew, tugging the cuffs down a little because his arms were longer than Jesse's.

"I'm really not," said Jesse, a little choked. "I am so really very not."

-

In California it was legal to fuck an android. In thirty-five other states you could go to jail for it. There were seven countries in the world who held fucking an android to be an offence punishable by death, but there were also three in which androids had citizen status and it was legal to marry them.

None of this was anywhere near as confusing as the inside of Jesse's own head.

-

And despite Jesse's sexual crisis, the world kept on turning. He kept getting scripts, kept going to auditions, kept getting callbacks and then, _we'll let you know in a few days_. He read scripts in the kitchen while Andrew read one of Jesse's books or made cups of coffee that he couldn't drink, or, if he had nothing else to do, stood with a hip cocked against the counter and made Jesse tell him the stories, made him act out bits of the part he was auditioning for.

"So," he said, leaning too close for Jesse's comfort, which these days was pretty much being in the same room. "What's the script about?"

"Oh," said Jesse, shrugging. He flipped through a couple more pages, but it didn't get any less awful. "It's nothing, really. I don't think I'm even going to audition for it. It's stupid."

"Oh, come on," said Andrew. "It can't be that bad. What's it about?"

"It's so stupid," said Jesse, but Andrew's look was earnest and encouraging, and Jesse cracked. "It's this, it's like this psychodrama about an android who falls in love with a girl. A human girl."

"It's a Romeo and Juliet thing?" said Andrew, brightly.

"Like Romeo and Juliet," Jesse allowed, "if Juliet thought Romeo was super creepy and in the end Romeo brutally murdered Juliet and went on a killing spree wearing her blood as, uh, warpaint."

"Oh," said Andrew.

"Like I said, it's so stupid," said Jesse. He closed up the script and put it aside. "I'm not even going to audition."

In the background, the coffee machine beeped and Andrew turned away. Jesse looked at the line of his back, the shape of his shoulderblades through the shirt.

"You know, it wouldn't make me feel bad if you took the part," Andrew said. When he turned around he was smiling, but Jesse, who knew a thing or two about faking it, thought it looked tense and uneasy. "People love movies like that."

"The movie's called _It Loved Her to Death_ ," said Jesse, trying to be as withering as he could. He took the coffee that Andrew offered him. "Seriously, I have to think about my, my indie cred."

"Oh, so Jesse Eisenberg can't be seen in mainstream robo-horror," Andrew teased, and that was better. "The android character would have to be a retro replicant and the killing would have to be a ironic commentary on the nature of love and capitalism. The title would have to be some obscure Asimov reference."

"How else will anyone take me seriously," said Jesse. And, because it felt important, he added, "Anyway, it, it would make me feel bad."

Andrew's smile was real this time. "You're very sweet," he said. Jesse got the feeling that if he could have blushed, he would.

-

There were a lot of things Jesse hated about living in L.A., like bad drivers and paparazzi and basically everything, but very high up on the list was the round of events that constituted the whole bullshit Hollywood scene. Even if Jesse managed to evade four out of every five, Emma somehow always managed to drag him to the worst ones, the ones with red carpets and too many photographers and having to be introduced to a hundred impossibly cool people who pretended to have seen Jesse's movies and got kind of offended when Jesse turned out to be too bad at casual social lying to pretend to have seen theirs.

Jesse was sure this was going to be one of those nights.

"I feel sick," he told Emma, when he opened the front door to let her in, because she no longer trusted him to show up of his own volition and had resorted, essentially, to kidnapping.

"You are the worst liar, I have no idea how you make a living as an actor," Emma told him, and shoved through. "Look at you, in a suit!"

"I wish I didn't know you," said Jesse, wanting to disappear.

Emma's improbably high heels clattered on the tiled hallway. "Jess, this house is awesome. I can't believe you didn't let me throw a housewarming."

"It would've been you and me and maybe a six pack of beer, of which you would have drunk five because I'm a ridiculous lightweight," said Jesse.

Emma rolled her eyes, the effect enhanced by her dark eye make-up. "Don't be stupid. I would've invited so many people. You would have hated it."

"I'm not sure how this is supposed to be making me regret my decision," said Jesse, and realised that Andrew was hovering in the doorway that led through to the kitchen.

"Hello," he said, brightly, and Jesse had a feeling of deja vu.

"Hi," said Emma, easily. "Andrew the android, right?"

Andrew laughed. "That's me. Can I get you anything? Coffee or tea? Water?"

"No," said Jesse, quickly. "I uh, the car's outside, I'm just getting my stuff."

"I'll take a bottled water for the road, if you have it," said Emma, blithely ignoring Jesse as she generally did.

"Coming right up," said Andrew, and he ducked back into the kitchen, which gave Emma the opportunity to smack Jesse on the arm with her studded clutch purse and say, "Jess, you didn't tell me yours was so _cute_ , oh my God, that accent and that _hair_ ," before Andrew came back into the room, producing the bottled water with a cheesy _ta da!_ flourish.

"We really have to go," Jesse said, because this was too weird, his best friend and his android.

"Shit," Emma said, checking her little Tiffany's watch. "We are actually going to be late. See you around, Andrew."

"Have a good night," said Andrew. He gave them a small goofy wave. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

At the front door Jesse paused. There was something vulnerable and sad about Andrew stranded in the empty space of the hallway, the shadows creeping in where the sunset coming through the high windows was burning itself out. It felt like leaving the cats home alone, except Andrew looked less reproachful.

"You probably shouldn't wait up," Jesse said, which made the whole thing so much worse.

"I'll be fine, Jesse," said Andrew, like he could see Jesse's guilt written across his face, which it probably was. e made a fond sort of shooing motion. "Go! Have fun!"

-

Emma was a bad influence. Emma was the worst influence. Emma, open bars, peer pressure, and tequila: these were the reasons why it took Jesse three attempts to get his key in the front door. When he got inside, the hallway was big and dark and he couldn't remember where the light-switch was, but if he could just sit down on the staircase for a minute or two he thought he might remember. He looked down at his too-shiny shoes and made a list of all the reasons why it would be a bad idea to throw up on them.

"Jesse?"

Jesse looked up. "Aaandrew. Hey."

The corner of Andrew's mouth quirked. "Jesse, are you drunk?"

"Only a lot," said Jesse. "Is that okay?"

"It's okay," said Andrew, with a hushed breath of laughter. "Can you stand? You should go to bed."

"I believe I can," said Jesse, and did. Things tipped precariously to one side. Jesse shut his eyes and put a hand over them, pressing like he could restore the equilibrium of the world that way. "This level of movement is problematic."

"Come here," said Andrew, pulling Jesse's hand away. Gently, he guided him to turn so that he could get an arm around Jesse's waist, steadying him against his own solid, lean body. "Let's get you up these stairs," he said. "One foot in front of the other."

"Mph," said Jesse. His head rolled on his neck of its own accord, coming to rest against Andrew's shoulder. "Which foot should we start with? I don't want to get off on the wrong one."

He felt the shudder of Andrew's chuckle through his own side before Andrew said, "Or we could do it this way," and lifted him as though he weighed nothing at all. The toes of Jesse's shoes bumped against the edge of every step as Andrew carried him up, slow and sure.

"I thought you said you didn't have any android super powers," Jesse said into Andrew's warm shoulder.

"I've been holding out on you," said Andrew. He didn't even sound out of breath, which Jesse guessed was sensible given that he didn't actually have breath. At the top of the staircase he set Jesse down very gently. "Flat surfaces better?"

Jesse eyed the floor. "This isn't flat."

"You are an adorable drunk," Andrew told him, and lifted him again. The movement made Jesse's stomach protest, and he grumbled against Andrew's shoulder and then bit it, lightly, feeling the solid resistance of Andrew's flesh and bone under his teeth and the laundry-taste of his shirt.

"Come on," Andrew said, pushing very gently at Jesse's cheek to make him let go, and Jesse realised that they had stopped again. He blinked and things shifted. They were in his bedroom and he was sitting on his bed, and Andrew was kneeling between his legs and undoing his tie. He had a look of focused concentration on his face, and the moonlight through the undrawn curtains made him silvery and beautiful. Jesse put a hand in his hair and tugged at it.

"Your hair is so ridiculous, and amazing," he said. He ruffled it so that it stuck up in spikes and sheafs in a messy halo around Andrew's head and Andrew looked up and caught his eye, smiling.

"You are so drunk," Andrew said, working on the buttons of Jesse's shirt now that he'd finished with the tie.

"I am so drunk," Jesse agreed. He bit his lip. Suddenly all he wanted was to not be drunk any more. He let go of Andrew's hair and covered his face with his hands. "Oh, God. Oh, God. I'm so drunk. How do I stop?"

"Hey," said Andrew. He pulled Jesse's hands away from his face. "You stop by going to sleep and waking up in the morning."

"I'm going to be so hungover," said Jesse. "You are so lucky you aren't human. You can't get hangovers."

"I'll have asprin and water and all the coffee you can drink," Andrew promised. He rested a hand on each of Jesse's knees. "Take your jacket off."

"I hate that you're so perfect," said Jesse, struggling out of his jacket, getting tangled in the process.

"I'm not perfect, Jesse," said Andrew, softly. He squeezed Jesse's knees once. "I'm not real."

Extricated from his jacket, Jesse clutched another handful of Andrew's hair and tugged at it. He was drunk, he was so drunk, and because of that he was saying, "If you're not real, why do I want to kiss you so much?"

Andrew's eyes fluttered shut. He had really long eyelashes. " _Jesse_."

"Please kiss me," said Jesse. He leaned forwards, hair in his eyes. The world was spinning and Andrew was the only fixed point. "Please, please, please."

"Okay, okay," Andrew said, and surged up suddenly, and there was his mouth against Jesse's, warm and soft, and tasting of nothing. When he tried to pull away Jesse tugged him close again, and even though Andrew clearly had some kind of super android strength the knowledge of which he had been withholding from Jesse, he stayed. He put his hand on Jesse's throat where the pulse beat and kissed him slowly, and Jesse wondered what he tasted like to Andrew, if he tasted anything at all, if Andrew had ever kissed anyone before.

"Wait," Jesse said, against Andrew's mouth, because the thought was shouldering through the haze of tequila, "I don't want to take advantage of you. I don't want to be one of those creepy guys on the news."

"Oh, Jesse," Andrew said. He swiped the soft pad of his thumb over the hollow of Jesse's throat. "You're so drunk I just carried you up the stairs. I'm undressing you. And you're worried that you might be taking advantage of me?"

"We need to discuss this when I'm less impaired," said Jesse, because it was getting difficult to hold his head up. "We should continue this conversation at a later date. Or not, because I'll probably have an anxiety attack and maybe vomit on you, but I think there should be more kissing, if, if you're amenable."

"Go to sleep, Jesse," Andrew said, and helped Jesse swing his legs up so that he was curled on his side. The floor listed like the deck of a sinking ship, and Jesse reached automatically for Andrew's hand.

"Wait," he said. "Stay here."

"Watching you sleep is creepy," said Andrew, but he squeezed Jesse's hand comfortingly, as if to say, _I'm here_.

"You make the world stand still," Jesse mumbled as he fell.

-

When Jesse woke the room was still dark, but that was because the curtains were drawn, and there was a bright seam where they met. Jesse couldn't remember closing them the night before, but then he thought, Andrew, and other things came rolling back too - Andrew carrying him up the stairs, Andrew undressing him with gentle fingers, Andrew kissing him because Jesse had asked him to. Andrew staying because Jesse had asked him.

He blinked. "Andrew?"

The dark shape that was Andrew stirred and shifted and became separate from the deeper darkness of the wall. "Morning," he said. "I wasn't watching - I was just checking to make sure you were -"

"I asked you to stay," said Jesse. He raised himself on one elbow, and things shifted and complained in his head and stomach but not dangerously so. "I remember that. You were here all night?"

Andrew shrugged, a quick movement. His knees were drawn up to his chest and it made him look small, fragile. "I'd do anything you asked me, Jess."

Jesse resisted the urge to put his face into the pillow and suffocate of embarrassment. He thought of Emma saying, take charge, Eisenberg. He reached out a hand and said, "Come here," and Andrew came, shuffling closer on his hands and knees like a graceless, trusting animal.

"I can't, I can't remember every detail from last night," said Jesse. "I'd really like to pretend that we did the whole talking thing and that we discussed all the relevant, uh, points and reached some kind of conclusion that leads to you kissing me again."

"Jesse," said Andrew. His hair was all messed up and Jesse remembered the silky feel of it, even if he couldn't remember actually doing it. "I'm really bad for you."

"I don't think you are," said Jesse. Maybe it was the lingering traces of the liquid courage that made him reach out and awkwardly brush his fingers against Andrew's shoulder and the fine line of his collarbone through his thin shirt, or maybe it was just that he really wanted to touch Andrew. "I mean, I, I get it if you don't want me, I know I'm kind of a mess even on the days when I don't smell like the floor of a nightclub, and you're so perfect, I just - if it's that, you can tell me, I won't be mad."

"I never wanted anything until I knew you," Andrew said, rocking forward on his knees so that he was eye-level to Jesse, so close now.

"Just to be clear," Jesse said, after a moment, "if I asked you to kiss me again, you could theoretically say no to that, right? I'm not, uh, completely versed in the ethics of android free will but if I asked you, and if you didn't want to, you could theoretically say no, and I wouldn't be forcing you to do anything?"

"Because of my android free will, I could theoretically say no," said Andrew. "And because of my android free will, I could theoretically just kiss you, without being asked."

"Oh," said Jesse. "Well. You know. Free will is good. You should, you know, exercise that."

And Andrew, smiling, did.


End file.
